Hat on Top, Coat Below

May Check-In

May 30, 2008

Weighing less? Yes! As of this morning, I was down five pounds from my last check-in and fourteen pounds down for the year so far. I didn’t really get on track with my diet until mid-month, when I turned to the grapefruit and protein plan (my crash diet of choice since college) to establish some control. Even though I ignored the “no cheese except cottage” and “only oil and vinegar on salad” rules, I dropped four pounds in four days. Mostly water, yes, but still fewer pounds to carry around can only be good for my knees (and boy, did that post-race bagel taste good after having no carbs for almost a week). After that, I moved on to what I think of as classic Weight Watchers, the program with the exchanges, a certain number of protein, milk, fat, fruit, starch, and vegetable servings each day. I found a .pdf with an exchanges food diary form to print out (on the Take Off Pounds Sensibly site here), and filling that out has been informative. Those Organic Food Bars and Amy’s Kitchen entrees that were my breakfast and lunch staples have way too much fat in them to have all the time; no wonder they’re so tasty. (This article has been a big help in figuring out the exchanges for stuff like that.) I’m still working on getting down to the 1200 calorie level consistently, but I feel like I’m on the right track now.

Moving more? Also yes. I didn’t achieve anywhere near as big an increase in mileage or time as I did last month, but with one workout to go for May, I do already have larger totals in both categories than I did in April and my average pace per mile has dropped by 40 seconds. Plus I did that 5K race. I’m feeling hopeful that I’ll be able to keep improving my running. Now I need to look at adding some strength training.

Keeping less and organizing more? In baby steps, but yes. My most noticeable accomplishment this month was decluttering the cosmetics caddy I use most days. According to this article, “Makeup should not stir up memories from ten years ago.” Oops. So that blush I wore in the late 80s has to go, eh? You may think I’m kidding, but no, I am not. I weeded out two L’Oreal blushes that I know were at least 20 years old along with many, many eye shadows (I rarely wear eye shadow these days, so I definitely do not need three or four dozen shades at my fingertips) and several miscellaneous products I couldn’t remember the last time I used. There are still a few things I should probably let go of, so I’ll need to do another sweep sometime, but this is definitely an improvement.